


Clues To Your Heart

by ricinulei



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 23:50:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7822054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ricinulei/pseuds/ricinulei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the near future. Cellphones have been invented, Lynne has acquired a teammate, and Mrs Hazel's fish farm isn't the only fishy thing about this case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clues To Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughingpineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/gifts).



“Suspect finally leaves her house,” Lynne said into her phone, leaning out from behind a hedge in someone else’s lawn, “after having exhausted the investigator’s patience. Most suspiciously, she’s taking a pushcart with her. The suspect, I mean, not the investigator. Clearly, this is where the evidence of the crime is hidden.”

For almost anybody else, the person leaving her house was just an average old lady, and her cart was just a cart with a multicolored little umbrella on it. To the people in this unremarkable neighborhood, it was just Mrs Hazel, probably grieving after her nephew’s sudden disappearance/kidnapping/possible murder. But to someone with true detecting instincts, she was a suspect hiding something. The only thing missing was proof.

“Or she’s exercising,” Memry said on the other side of the line.

“You’re not on her side, are you?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t be out here in a Friday night if I didn’t want to catch her. That’s just the kind of excuse a suspicious person would come up with.”

Lynne decided to let that go. “Suspect heads south. She turns left at the corner.” Lynne followed at a safe distance, not far enough to lose Mrs Hazel out of sight, not close enough for her steps to be heard. It’s a good thing she didn’t lift her eyes from the mark, because Mrs Hazel did start to turn around at one point, but Lynne ducked behind the corner of a house at the right moment.

“Do you see her?” she asked. “I think she’s going your way. I can’t follow too close, she knows me and won’t be happy if she realizes I’m following her.”

“Unless she’s already forgotten your face.”

“I doubt it. She _really_ seemed to dislike me.” Lynne peeked out and saw Mrs Hazel’s retreating back a block away. “How about you trail her for a while? She won’t suspect you.”

“Okay. Hold on. Yes, I see her. That umbrella’s handy, isn’t it?”

Mrs Hazel and her umbrella were nowhere to be seen from Lynne’s position, but that didn’t matter. There was only one sensical place to dispose of a body on foot. “She’ll be heading for the river. We’ve gotta catch her just as she’s about to dispose of the evidence, or she’ll get rid of it for good!”

 

* * *

 

Not too long ago, Lynne used to work alone. She had done just fine without a partner, thank you—except for that time with Sissel, but that was a special case, and nobody at the Police Department have any powers of the dead, anyway.

Until that time Memry sat next to her in the new ice cream parlor, where Lynne was making short work of a mega-sized banana split, and said, “So you’re on that gangster’s case. I think I can help.”

“Um, why?” Lynne said as soon as she managed to swallow her last mouthful.

“Because I saw some interesting things while doing the mail delivery.” Memry still had the uniform on as proof of her last soon-to-be-over job.

“That’s nice,” Lynne said, though her tone definitely didn’t agree, “but I suggest you focus on your own case next time.”

Was that too aggressive?

“Oh, my case is over!” Memry leaned back on her seat, arms crossed behind her head. “I don’t mind helping you at all.”

Not aggressive enough, apparently. Maybe Lynne could find a clearer way to put it. Like _How about no way?_ or _Nobody’s going to sneak into my limelight if I can help it_. Except that, if Memry did plan to cling to Lynne’s hard-earned glory, she could always play dirty. Better to keep an eye on her—and that was much easier done if they were on the same side, at least for now.

And who knew, maybe Memry had something useful after all.

 

* * *

 

The phone coverage in this area was awful. Lynne had to climb on someone’s balcony and was getting filthy looks from their neighbor—who took way too long setting the laundry out to dry—before she managed to talk to Memry again.

“You know,” Memry said, “the suspect isn’t heading to the river at all.”

“You think she saw you?” Lynne asked, balancing herself on the balcony railing between two leafy potted ferns.

“Well, I did turn around a couple of times, so I guess she could’ve seen me. Anyway—”

So much for that call. Lynne climbed down so fast the nosy neighbor gave a startled jump, probably thinking she’d break her neck. Better not to leave Memry alone in Mrs Hazel’s proximities for long. If she had murdered her nephew, you never knew what she could do to a stranger.

 

* * *

 

Maybe Lynne should’ve made clear that this was supposed to be _her_ case and Memry _her_ collaborator. Because, if Lynne didn’t knew better, she would’ve thought Memry had gotten it backwards. At least she hadn’t found an excuse to be conveniently away when it came to dig into the gangster’s trash. As disheartening as was the idea of finding a laundry ticket in that mess, doing it alone would take twice as long. Terrible.

“I do hope,” Memry said, because she still somehow had energy left to chat, “you’ll ask me out to a fancier place eventually.”

What a weird thing to say. Was Memry often asked out to dumpsters that smelled of orange juice seasoned with trash (courtesy of the gangster’s grandchildren, apparently)? On second thought, Lynne regretted even thinking that question to herself.

“What you call your love life will survive,” Lynn said without thinking, because her fringe was sweaty and annoying, but she couldn’t push it away without getting trash over her forehead.

Then Memry threw a soup can at her, but her aim was poor and Lynne dodged it. Luckily, the ticket was found before the cans got bigger.

 

* * *

 

“On the good side,” Memry said on the other side of the line, “I’ve found Mrs Hazel’s umbrella. Oh the bad side, Mrs Hazel and the rest of her cart are nowhere to be found.”

Great. The old lady had escaped them at the last moment. She might be getting rid of the evidence in that exact moment. But that wasn’t the worst part. No way your average senior citizen would be able to know she was being followed and dodge a professional trailing her so easily. Mrs Hazel was definitely more than what she pretended to.

As if Lynne needed to be any more convinced of her guilt.

“We have to find her now! This river’s quite wide, though. Where are you?”

“I have an idea.” Memry’s voice came clearer. “I’m climbing a tree. She can’t be out of sight yet.”

“Be careful!”

Wind breezed at the other side of the line. Lynne figured Memry needed both hands to climb, but waiting made her scalp itch.

“Okay,” Memry said. “I’m in position. And—hey! There she is! If you go southwest by Calendula Street, you’ll find her!”

Lynne was already running as fast as she could. Two elementary schoolkids flattened themselves against the wall to dodge her. Lynne was so busy counting the streets to make sure she didn’t run past Calendula, she didn’t even realize she’d dropped her phone.

 

* * *

 

Mrs Hazel had never pretended she felt anything but irritated by the detectives asking her questions and poking around her house after her nephew’s mysterious disappearance. That was kind of refreshing. However, she had helped the police investigation to the best of her abilities—her very apathetic abilities, as she didn’t seem to care about anything other than her fish farm, but nobody said she had to care. And she was as clean as anybody could possibly be.

Which, of course, was suspicious in and of itself. Nobody’s that clean. The other detectives weren’t too convinced by this reasoning, but that was their problem. Lynne knew Mrs Hazel hid something, and she wasn’t going to stand for it. And neither was Memry, who had turned into something of a barnacle that affixed herself to Lynne’s every case. Strangely, every once in a while Memry said something that implied _Lynne_ was the barnacle, but that was completely nonsensical, so Lynne just ignored it. Other than that, Memry _had_ turned out to be fairly useful and not too hard to get along with. Well, that and her weird insistence in calling their lunch meetings “dates”, which would’ve been kind of creepy coming from someone else, but coming from Memry was—another Memry thing. And she never complained about the location as long as Lynne was the one paying. Even if she rolled her eyes that day when Lynne mentioned The Chicken Kitchen; Memry claimed she’d gotten sick of the place when she’d worked there a few days, if you can believe that.

“Mrs Hazel’s nephew called her a couple of hours past midnight,” Lynne explained.

“He’s lucky she didn’t just hung up on him.” Memry poked gingerly at her chicken. One of the many things Lynne would never understand was the existence of people who can sit before a whole chicken and not start digging in immediately.

“It seems Mrs Hazel stays up late. She says it’s because of her fish farm, but don’t fish sleep at night? Anyway, her nephew had just ‘acquired’ those stolen jewels that put us on his trail, and it seems he wanted somewhere peaceful to rest until he had to meet his fence.”

“And he ended up finding somewhere too peaceful.” Memry leaned on her steepled fingers. “And he never even made it to his aunt’s place—or so she claims.”

“But we don’t have proof. All the neighbors go to bed early, so it’s just Mrs Hazel’s word for it. Sure, the evidence seems to be on her side, but what if she did murder her nephew and drive off on his car to make it look like he’d stopped along the road? Then she’d keep the jewels to herself.” (That speech was delivered alternating with many mouthfuls of chicken.)

 

* * *

 

Lynne got to Mrs Hazel just as she’d opened her pushcart in preparation for dumping its content into the river. But then Mrs Hazel whipped around at the last moment, and it was all Lynne could do to stop before running into the barrel of her gun.

“Oh. you just had to go and be a pain, had you?” Mrs Hazel asked.

Meanwhile, Lynne’s eyes flicked straight to the pushcart’s contents. “If you haven’t seen your nephew in years, what is his body doing in there?”

“It means I have two bodies to dispose of.” Mrs Hazel’s finger tightened on the trigger.

It was a while since the last time Lynne died. She’d pretty much forgotten how it went, but she was pretty sure there’d be no sudden ghostly help at the last moment this time—which is why the flying tomato can startled her almost as much as it did Mrs Hazel, who got the can square on the back of her head. Never mind that; it was just Memry’s improved aim. By the moment Lynne realized that fact, she’d already ducked out of Mrs Hazel’s firing line. Lynne and Memry fell on top of Mrs Hazel at the same time—and banged their heads together for their trouble—and managed to take her gun away about ten seconds before the police cars arrived.

“Well, that was overkill,” Lynne muttered from under Memry’s elbow.

“Overkill nothing! ‘Mrs Hazel’ here is the leader of a whole smuggling ring. I just got the call after talking to you, but couldn’t call—by the way, where’s your phone?”

Oh, some bean counter was slacking. That was Lynne’s verdict.

“Well,” Lynne said after the police cars had taken the fake Mrs Hazel away and all that was left to do was to head back to the Department and maybe grab some dinner on the way, “you were pretty great today. As good as me, if I’m honest.”

Memry frowned as if something didn’t quite fit, but that soon gave way to relief. “You really had me worried there!”

That wasn’t exactly Lynne’s fault, but an idea came to her all the same. “How about we have dinner somewhere you choose for a change? As long as I can afford it, of course.”

The next thing Lynne knew, she had Memry’s arms around her neck and Memry’s lips on her own.

“But I don’t even have that much money at this time of the month!” Lynne, rather flustered, rushed to add as soon as she could.

“It’s not that! You’re such a good partner! And—such a good person, and—I really like you!”

Well. Even the very best detectives miss the obvious clues sometimes. At least it’s nothing Lynne can’t fix, by disabusing Memry of whatever weird notion’s gotten into her head now and making things clear this time.

“I really like you, too. Like that. Exactly like that.” Lynne put her hands on Memry’s shoulders. “And I can’t promise I won’t worry like that anymore, but I can try.”

Yes. Perfect.

“You better.” Memry squeezed Lynne tighter, almost cutting off her air supply. “Because you’re not going to find a girlfriend this accomodating everywhere.”

“Hey,” Lynne said, “don’t push your luck.”


End file.
